It's been a busy-ass week at work, and, to top things off, I had a pork loin I was going to cook a few nights ago, but, when I got to the house, the fucking air conditioning wasn't working, and there was no way in hell I was going to be cooking a pork loin when the house was already hot. Luckily, I was able to fix the AC that night, but it was far too late for cooking, which meant that the next night, I had to cook all of the pork loin because I didn't want it to start to turn.
Well, pork loins are pretty sizeable, so I ended up making two meals (four servings) simultaneously. It was exciting. There were two pans and two pots on four burners, plus another pan in the oven. There were entrees, sides, and sauces. There were not a ton of pictures. My bad.
Starting off, I trimmed as much of the thick-ass fat off as I could. I know, I know, fat is love, fat is life, but the thick slab of fat on a pork loin can get unseemly really fucking fast. After the cleaning, I cut the loin into two sections, as close to a 1/3 and 2/3 as I could. I also prepped a lot of vegetables, but I'm not listing all of it. You'll have to figure it out along the way.
My cooking began with seasoning and searing the larger portion. I threw some M9 seasoning onto the loin, along with some ground mustard and cayenne. Seriously, if you want to try an amazing seasoning blend, order some M9. Anyway, once that was finished searing, I stuck it in the oven at 400 degrees. Now, The Google said to put it in there for 8-10 minutes. That was some absolute horse shit. I did that and it was mostly cooked, but still need about another 10 minutes to finish. Once it was done, I set it aside to rest for another 10 or so minutes.
Granted, I was doing lots of other shit during that. I thinly sliced the other section as evenly as I could, then seasoned all of them with salt and pepper before dredging them in flour for a quick fry. Since it was thin, it didn't take long to cook all the way through; instead, I was focused on getting a nice brown crust on there. The frying was done in butter along with a few crushed cloves of garlic and a handful of sage leaves that I coarsely chopped. If you didn't know, sage butter is fucking amazing for cooking pork.
Once the thin slices were done, I added some cream to the pan, then scraped all of the cooked on flour off of the bottom of the pan and mixed it in to make a pretty damn nice roux.
I kept that on a really low heat for some sexy garlic and sage gravy.
I also reused the pan from the first chunk of pig for a different sauce. I dropped in some chopped red onion and let that sweat a little bit so I could scrape the shit off the bottom of that pan, then I added in some sliced mushroom and diced red bell pepper with a bit of olive oil. Once the mushrooms were softening some, I also dumped in 3 quartered Campari tomatoes. I love Campari tomatoes: they've still got the tomato acidity, but they bring a really nice sweetness, too. I'll eat those fuckers raw.
Once the tomatoes had cooked a bit and gotten all flimsy, I poured in about a half cup of red wine, then kept that simmering to reduce while everything else finished.
Oh, by the way, I also boiled some cubed turnip with salt. That actually got started around the time I started the first hunk of loin, but it just sat in the back for a while. I occasionally stirred it to keep things from sticking or boiling over. Once it was tender enough to easily stab through with a fork, I dumped the pot through a colander to strain it out.
I poured a little cream, butter, minced red onion, minced garlic, and rosemary into the turnip pot and put it back on a lower heat for a few minutes, then dumped the turnips back in and mashed it all up together for, well, mashed turnips.
Even though I wasn't going to eat it all that night, I still decided to do a little bit of plating practice. I sliced up the roast pork loin, then cut out the middles of the slices and packed in some mashed turnips. The texture wasn't quite as smooth as I would like (there were a couple pretty sizable chunks), but it filled in nicely.
After I got those situated on the plate, I spooned a little bit of the garlic and sage gravy over them. Not the most inspired presentation, but the flavor was out-fucking-standing. The sweetness and earthiness of the mashed turnips played very well with the spicy meatiness of the pork. Meanwhile, the gravy added some extra complexity with the herbaceous undertone of the sage tempering the garlic. There was a slight acidity to the gravy, probably from the sage, I guess? Anyway, it could have used just a touch more, to be honest.
As for the other dish, I also boiled a pot of farfalle (aka bowtie pasta), which I finished in the tomato wine sauce. I scooped a bit of that onto my plate, then laid a few pieces of the fried pork cutlets across the top. Once again, not the most exciting or interesting display, but the flavor was fucking amazing. Reducing the wine a bit more than I normally do was exactly what was needed. The pork itself had a simpler flavor due to the light seasoning, but that just let the natural flavor of the meat speak for itself while mixing with the absolutely amazing sauce. I'll definitely be keeping this one in my back pocket for later.
Comments
Post a Comment